SAN DIEGO — Residents of South San Diego communities say they are bearing the brunt of the city's push to add low-income housing projects and have for the past several decades.
Over a hundred residents showed up during an October 28 Chollas Valley Community Planning Group meeting.
The turnout comes after community members discovered what they say is a hidden footnote which they are referring to as, "Footnote 7", tucked away in the Municipal Code, overriding the governing planning for the area.
The footnote usurps the zoning that community members agreed on for their neighborhoods, reducing the minimum lot size for projects from 20,000 square feet to only 5,000 square feet.
Doing so, says residents, encourages more dense housing projects, including more affordable housing developments instead of single-family homes which would stimulate homeownership and promote upward mobility.
"They continue to concentrate poverty here, they continue to destroy the notion of single-family homes," one community member said during public comment.
Planning Group Chair Andrea Hetheru said the footnote rezoned some areas in Chollas Valley from being the second least dense areas to some of the most dense. This reduced the minimum lot size for projects from 20,000 square feet to only 5,000 square feet.
"Anything we wanted to do with the land will be much more difficult to do when it’s divided up into that many lots," Hetheru said.
Residents said this increases density and takes away the possibility for large green spaces.
"We’re probably talking about a whole lot more concrete, more heat island effect, more concentration of poverty," Hetheru said.
The group said the rezoning is an act of racial discrimination because it only applies to the predominately non-white areas of Chollas Valley and Southeastern San Diego.
"This is clear-cut discrimination that no one can stand for," a community member said at the meeting.
The planning group approved sending a letter to the City Council and Mayor asking to remove the footnote and stop all projects it controls.
"Being compliant with affirmatively furthering fair housing and deconcentrating poverty is the top priority for our board," Hetheru said.
The City Planning Department sent the group a letter saying it supports removing the footnote and is unclear why it only applies to those areas and not the entire city.
Another letter said it is waiting to hear from the State Department of Housing and Community Development on whether or not the footnote can be removed. If it is allowed to do so, it will likely be heard by the City Council in mid-2025.
CBS 8 reached out to the city for additional comment but did not hear back as of this report.